LIST OF PANELS

It was March 2020 when COVID struck us. It came as a rude shock. The world had not heard of a pandemic of this nature and magnitude. Even the most developed countries with huge health and medical infrastructure were thoroughly confused to tackle this pandemic.  There seemed to have a policy crisis in almost all the countries of the world and Policy-wise, all kinds of Laws were applied as there was no time to enact new laws.

Even in India, THE EPIDEMIC DISEASES ACT, of 1897 was enforced which initially dealt with the outbreak of Cholera in some parts of India. This two-page Act provided all powers to Government to deal with the disease.

Likewise, in most Asian countries, there were not enough laws and policies to deal with the situation; let alone the necessary infrastructure and medicines.

This panel aims to discuss how different countries managed this crisis through their existing administrative-legal mechanism that came into force for a situation like this. What lessons has the world learnt regarding policies, programmes and projects?

Crisis and its management are not now to the world. Every crisis brings with it opportunities for improvement. Hurricane Katrina in the USA in 2005 raised several questions about governance including apartheid. It changed the American thought process. Similarly, SARS, Bird Flu and all such incidences make Public Administration understand its inherent and systemic weaknesses; and give the opportunity to make necessary course corrections. Understating the policy perspective; creating a new policy formulation and implementation model and making the world more secure and safe is the ultimate responsibility of public administration. Several related questions of leadership, motivation and decision-making will also be understood leading to a new understanding of the phenomena.

The focus of this panel would be on Asia as the outbreak started here and it is the most populated area of the world where resides two-thirds of humanity. It is not difficult to learn that the world has always been Euro-Centric since the Industrial revolution when the solution to every Asian governance problem was searched through European lenses. Even at the time of the COVID crisis, it seemed that the Asian countries were looking towards Europe seeking policy solutions and a course of action. This should be seen as a new form of crisis, as the capabilities of the governments were under question when it came to managing this crisis. The agility of the governments of Asian Counties should be improved with time.

The panel aims to find out the answers to the following research questions:

1.    What was the administrative and legal background of the different Asian Countries while dealing with this situation of crisis?

2.    What Acts, Policies, Programmes and Projects were formulated for dealing with this crisis situation?

3.    What were the experiences of different parts of the world?

4.    Was the line of treatment right, if not, what are the alternatives?

5.    What lessons did we learn for future policies and legal frameworks?

6.    Centralization or decentralization is the key?

7.    Why were the most developed countries most affected?

The panel on Governing Crisis (T20) will be discussing, but not limited to, the following themes

1.    Legal background in crisis management.

2.    Handling the pandemic with existing laws.

3.    Act, policies, programmes and projects for pandemic management.

4.    Experiences of pandemic management in different parts of the world.

5.    Alternatives to existing policies.

6.    Lessons learnt for future policies and legal framework.

7.    Centralization or decentralization is the key.

8.    Why were the most developed countries most affected.

9.    Good Governance and pandemic handling

10.  SDGs and pandemic management policies.

Submissions must contain:

·         A title that describes the work, ideally about 10–12 words long.

·         A list of contributing authors (names and affiliations), starting with the name of the main author. If there is more than one author, the name of the speaker should be underlined. It is noted here that the registration of the speaker is mandatory.

·         The contact details of the contact author: name, mailing address, email, phone or fax number.

·         The section and the category in which the authors would like to integrate the paper and a list of 2 to 7 keywords.

·         An abstract would be preferably written in English. The abstract should be as informative as possible and a true outline of the full work. The abstract should not exceed 6000 characters (with spaces).

·         Submissions must be made online.

Rules for the presentation of the final papers accepted will be also made available.